1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the initialization of the personal computer and more specifically relates to multiple bootable hard disks which are switched by adding a custom switching circuit board easily installed in the personal computer, thus permitting the user to upgrade their computer to a multiple operating system computer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common in initialization of the personal computer or PC computer to bring up an operating system, such as Microsoft Disk Operating System (DOS), so that upon turning on the computer the system initialization includes loading DOS and eventually providing a "DOS prompt" on the screen for interaction. Typically, the user will have selected the operating system he or she will be using and will insert a DOS diskette into a floppy diskette drive, or A drive, so that the initialization process or boot up of the computer can take place. Once the initialization has taken place and the DOS prompt has appeared on the screen of the monitor, the user can then choose which application software he or she wishes to use and load that software into the computer by way of removing the DOS diskette from the A Drive, inserting the software diskette chosen into the A drive and typing in the filename of the program into the computer.
Because of the tediousness of insertion and removal of the diskettes into the A drive, a hard disk or C hard disk was invented that would allow the user to place his selected operating system onto the hard disk so that the operator need only turn on the computer to have it boot up. No DOS diskette needed to be inserted into the A drive because the hard disk or C hard disk already contained the DOS system, or chosen operating system. In addition to this benefit of using a hard disk, the user could also install his application software onto the same hard disk in subdirectories, allowing the user to copy most, if not all, of his application software onto the hard disk. This, as it turned out, saved the user considerable time not having to load and remove floppies from the A drive while using the computer. Additionally, another hard disk or D drive was added to the existing computer to expand the size of the C drive. The computer did not boot from the D drive; the D drive only gave the user added space to store more of their software.
Unfortunately, if the user wished to run another operating system on his or her computer, he or she either had to erase the old operating system and software from his or her hard disk and load the new operating system onto it or boot the new operating system with the A Drive and then load his or her new software via the A Drive as well. This put the user in the same position of having to load everything from the A drive as described above.
Because of this problem, one operating system emerged as the leading operating system in the market place: the Microsoft DOS Operating System. Although other operating systems have been invented, none of them shares the same success as the DOS operating system. Most application software available from software retailers for the PC computer, operate on the DOS operating system. It is common to find most, if not all PC computers using a hard disk with the DOS operating system installed on it. Though other operating systems can be installed on the hard disk, most of the PC computers using a hard disk use the DOS operating system.
Now, personal computer hardware and newer, faster processor chips have advanced far beyond the DOS operating system that was originally designed for the P.C. computers. While many operating systems have been designed to replace the DOS operating system, every attempt has been met with resistance from the personal computer user. Most people that own a personal computer system have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars for software that runs on the DOS operating system. While new operating systems may be faster and provide operations that DOS was never intended to perform, no one is willing to throw their supply of software away so that they may run on a faster, new operating system.
Microsoft, the original manufacture of the DOS operating system, and IBM Corp. joined together to manufacture OS/2 ver 2.0 operating system, which was intended to replace the slower DOS operating system. The problem with the OS/2 operating system is that a user had to divide his or her hard disk into multiple operating system partitions which greatly reduces their capacity to store data on their hard disks. Users in general found that installation of the OS/2 operating system was hard to perform and that the OS/2 operating system only allowed you to run other versions of OS/2 or Dos or Windows. Also DOS and Windows application software did not always perform well while running on OS/2. Because of this problem, software manufacturers were reluctant to spend their time and money developing new software to support the OS/2 operating system. Although some software has been developed for the faster OS/2 operating system, most software manufacturers are not willing to jeopardize their DOS operating system market by developing new software to support OS/2, a system to which the majority of users are not willing to switch to.
Recognizing this, other individuals and companies have been developing ways to combat this problem, as the need for a newer and faster operating system is growing in the computer market. It is essential, in order to advance computer technology that the operating system be able to advance with it. There is a need every few years to be able to update or create a new, more powerful operating system as computer technology advances, without having to provide support for the older, slower operating systems and without affecting the users need to maintain these older operating systems and software. The answer to this problem is not a new operating system that can provide some compatibility for the DOS software. The answer is a multiple operating system computer that allows the operating systems to coexist within the computer and allow any and all operating systems to run independent from each other. It has been stated in P.C. Computing Magazine, February, 1994, issue that in 32 bit operating systems: Compatibility is key. This is not the case.
On Jan. 8, 1985 a Patent was granted, Angelle et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,034, the assignee was Honeywell Information Systems Inc. Honeywell developed a Data Processing System that could supervise a plurality of operating systems for the consumers use. On Jul. 16, 1985 a patent was granted to Honeywell Information Systems, King et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,052, on another Data Processing System that shared a plurality of operating systems. On Jul. 28, 1992 a patent was granted to IBM, Bertram et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,580, in which a personal computer was modified or developed to allow a choice of two operating systems to the user without the need to shut down the equipment. Other Patents include Shirakabe et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,709, O'Brien et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,973, and. K. K. Womack, U.S. Pat. No. 3,440,612.
In all of the above patents, new computers were developed to provide for a plurality of operating systems at a large expense to the consumer, most of these computers being data processing or mainframe computers. One computer U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,580 Bertram et al, assignee IBM Corp. designed and patented a modified personal computer to run two different operating systems. The problem with this approach, at least in the short term, is that the user would have to buy a new and expensive computer to replace his old computer. Users will find it just as hard to throw away their expensive computers as they did with their expensive DOS software, just to run on a faster and better operating system. Another problem with this system is that it does not provide storage space for both operating systems to store their separate software on hard disks and in subdirectories, or in large amounts.
Though most consumers, if the equipment was able, would probably prefer to run on a newer and faster operating system and to buy software for that system, they could not afford the cost to replace all their existing software that currently runs on the DOS operating system, or the cost of replacing their computer equipment by buying a multiple operating system computer. The solution is to provide a printed circuit board card that is easily installed into their existing computer, allowing them to upgrade to a multiple system computer at a small cost.